In sutra, we use our imaginations first of all to help us overcome negative aspects of ourselves, in other words, disturbingemotions and attitudes. If we are very much under the control of obsessive desires, let’s say desire for young attractive looking people as sexualobjects, we would then try to imagine what these persons will look like when they are 80 years old. Remember, obsessive desire is based on exaggerating someone’s qualities, and so when we have this sexualdesire we’re imagining that this person is going to look young and beautiful forever, which obviously is not true. Imagining [[]]what the person’s going to look like when old and decrepit, fat, and so on helps us to have a much more realisticattitude toward the person and to relate to him or her as a person rather than as a young body. This is one usage of the imagination, and as you can see, it’s creative: it’s artistic and very helpful.

Likewise, we can use our imaginations to help us to develop positive qualities, such as compassion. For instance, we can imagine a sheep about to be slaughtered and imagine ourselves as that sheep about to be slaughtered, and how we would desperately want to be free from that fate. Then we could imagine our mother, our father, our friends, and so on as this sheep. This helps us to develop a strong wish that they be free of having to be killed as well. And eventually we think about the sheep itself that is to be slaughtered. In this way, we open our hearts out to developing more compassion for others and wishing they be free from suffering.

In the sutrapath there’s a tremendous variety of things that we imagine to help us overcome negative qualities, develop good qualities, and become more realistic. Like, for example, imagining if we were to die right now, would we really be emotionally prepared for that?
How to Visualize

Many people say, “Well, I can’t visualize. So how can I use these methods?” Actually, if we take a moment to investigate, we find that we all do have powers of imagination. For instance, try to remember what your mother or your best friend, it doesn’t matter who, looks like. Please do that for a moment. We all are capable of remembering what our most closely loved ones look like. So, we are able to visualize.

I remember once I was in India with a friend of mine who really had a problem with visualizing. We were on a long bus ride together on a very hot day and she was suffering very much from heat and thirst. So I started to torture her in a sense by saying, “Wow, wouldn’t it be great if we had some nice cold oranges. Can you imagine how refreshing they would taste? And their smell?” And all of a sudden she discovered that she was able to visualize and imagine an orange very well. So, we all are capable; it’s just a matter of training.

When we imagine a Buddha, we imagine a very small Buddha-figure in front of us at the level of our eyes, about an arm’s length away, and we imagine this figure to be not solid, but made out of light, and alive. We imagine that there’s a little bit of corporeality - some weight for that light – this is just a little trick to help keeping that image stable. If we think too much in terms of it being just light, the image tends to float around too easily. What’s important in working with this type of visualization practice is that we don’t focus with our eyes staring ahead as if we were looking at the Buddha in front of us. Rather, we look down toward the floor and imagine something in front of us at the level of our brow. Try that for a moment. Look down in front of you and hold your hand in front at the level of your eyes. Now, while looking down at the floor, you can concentrate where your hand is and imagine that your hand is there, even though you are not seeing it, can’t you? So, it is possible. That’s what we do when we visualize a figure in front of us.

Tantra is the main area in which we find the use of imagination, and so the rest of this talk is going to be about tantra. I think that even if we’re not yet involved in tantric practice, or don’t even have an intention to be involved with tantric practice at this point in our Dharmatraining, it can be very helpful to have some idea of what goes on in tantra practice. This will help us to dispel any misconceptions we might have about it, such as it’s all magic, exotic sex, and that sort of stuff. Having a clearer idea of what it is helps us to decide on a more rational basis whether or not we would really like to involve ourselves with this level of practice.

When we work with these Buddha-figures, we either imagine them in front of us or on top of our heads or, more frequently, we imagine ourselves in the form of one of them.
“Clarity” and “Pride”

When we imagine these figures, we need to work on two aspects simultaneously. These are usually translated as “clarity” and “pride.” This is somewhat misleading. One of the biggest problems that we face as Westerners dealing with Buddhism is that most of the translation terms are misleading.

First of all, “clarity” doesn’t mean what we usually understand clarity to mean. The word translated as clarity here doesn’t mean “in focus,” but rather it means “having or making something appear.” This means that our minds actually make an image appear. That’s one side of the story we have to work on, getting an image to appear. When we work with these figures, what we try to do is to focus on what our minds make appear and, as our concentration develops, then the focus, the details, will improve automatically. There is no need to strain to get all the details and everything in focus. To start with, all we need is a rough image of something appearing, even if it is just a ball of light.

I shall triumph over everything
And nothing shall triumph over me!
As a spiritual offspring of the Triumphant Lion,
I shall maintain this pride.
Wandering beings conquered by pride
Are disturbed: they have no pride;
For those having pride don’t fall under the enemy’s power,
But instead, have power over the enemy, pride…
But those who hold on to their pride in order to triumph
over the enemy, pride,
Are the holders of pride, the triumphant heroes.
And those who kill off the enemy, pride,
even though it’s gargantuan,
Bestow then the fruit of triumph in full
on wandering beings, whatever they wish.

Thus, if we’re visualizing something in front of us, such as a Buddha, we not only have something appear, but we really feel that this Buddha is actually there with all the qualities of an enlightened being.

These two aspects, as we’ve described them – that something is appearing and feeling that it’s actually there – are common with sutra, as when we imagine a Buddha in front of us to gain concentration. But, as said earlier, the major use of imagining these Buddha-figures in tantra is to imagine that we ourselves are these figures.

We can understand what to “hold the pride of the deity” means by looking at the Tibetanword that’s translated as “pride,” ngagyel (nga-rgyal). This word is made up of two syllables, the first, nga, means “me” and the second, gyel, means literally, “to triumph.” When we speak of pride as a disturbingemotion, what it really means is considering ourselves as triumphant or better than others – in other words, “self-importance.” In this context, however, the term means “triumphing over the self” – in other words, triumphing over the ordinary concept of ourselves, in the sense of overcoming and ridding ourselves of this concept. This means to no longer feel that we have all the limitations, the shortcomings of our ordinary self, like being confused, being unable to understand things, and so on. Instead, we imagine that we actually have the qualities of this Buddha-figure – that we are Manjushri for instance: We have clarity of mind and discriminating awareness; we are able to understand everything.

In order to be able to visualize a Buddha-figure, of course we have to know what that figure looks like. But visualization of ourselves in some special form is not as difficult as we might think. For example, try to feel your head. First, let’s start by imagining something on top of our heads. The way to do that is to put your hand on top of your head. Can you feel your hand on top of your head? Now, take your hand away. Can you still feel the top of your head? That’s how you imagine something on your head. Focus there. All you need is some feeling of something being there. It doesn’t have to be in focus in order to do the meditation. So it’s not really that difficult.

Even when these figures have many arms, that’s not so difficult either. Let’s try Chenrezig with four arms. Put your hands in front of you. Do you have a feeling of that? Now put your hands out to the side. Now imagine this being a double-exposure photo. Put your hands in you lap. Can you still feel those four arms? It’s not that difficult. This is how we work with our imagination with these figures.

Even when it gets more complicated, it really isn’t terribly difficult. Let’s imagine three faces. Put your hands on the side of your face. Try to have a feeling first of the face on the front of your head. Now take your hands away. Can you feel a face on both your cheeks as well?

Sometimes we imagine that we’re inside a mandala, which is being inside the palace in which one of these Buddha-figures lives. That’s not too difficult either. The key to this is that we’re not working with our eyes. Now we’re all sitting in this room, aren’t we? Can you have a feeling that there are four walls around us? That’s how you visualize a mandala. You don’t need to actually have a visual image of a wall behind you to have a feeling that there’s a wall behind. And can you be aware of the fact that there’s a garden and a road outside? That’s how you visualize things outside the mandala: it’s just a feeling of those things being there. So, this is the actual process of training the imagination.
The Image Arises within Voidness

For all of this to be much more significant and meaningful, it is crucial to generate all these feelings, images and so on within the context of our understanding of voidness.

Let’s look at a simplified example of what voidness means. Suppose I have done something destructive and, filled with guilt, I believe that I’m a monster. Nobody, however, exists as a monster. That’s totally impossible; there are no such things as actual monsters. When we focus on voidness, we focus merely on “no such thing.” What our minds are projecting does not correspond to anything real; there is a total absence of an actual referent to our projections.

It is important to dispel all the crazy fantasies we have about ourselves, such as that we are monsters. This is especially so in tantra where we work with our self-image, which is what we’re dealing with when we imagine ourselves as one of these Buddha-figures. We contemplate how our usual self-image is crazy, without any real referent. We understand, “I’m not a monster, because there are no such things as monsters.” And then we recite in a tantricvisualization practice (a sadhana), “Within voidness, I arise as so-and-so.”

This is very important because, when dispelling all these fantasies about ourselves, we also dispel the disturbingemotions that go along with that. When we think, “I’m a monster,” we have a great deal of self-hatred and low self-esteem. When we realize that we are not a monster – there are no such things as monsters – then disturbingemotions like low self-esteem and self-hatred have no basis. So we dispel that. The same method works with other disturbingemotions, such as when we think, “I’m God’s gift to the world; I’m so wonderful.” This is macho arrogance. We have to dispel that as well. Then, within that absence, we arise as this Buddha-figure based on the fact that we do indeed have the potentials to become it as part of our Buddha-nature.

This is not self-deception because we know we’re not there, we’re not yet a Buddha. But it is not distorted or crazy either, because we have the potentials to achieve it. Of course, we could argue that we also have the potentials to be reborn as a dog. But it’s not the same thing, since there’s no benefit to be gained by imagining that we are a dog. There is, however, great benefit to be gained by imagining that we have perfectcompassion or perfectwisdom. Imagining and practicing now as if we had perfectwisdom and so on helps us to develop these qualities more quickly.

In order to understand the much deeper significance of working with our imaginations, we need to understand how our minds make things appear, because this is what we’re doing with our imaginations, we’re making things appear. The way that our minds make things appear is by mixing two things, which are usually called pureappearances and impure appearances. To really appreciate the significance of this we need to take the Tibetanword that’s translated as “appearance,” nangwa (snang-ba) both as a noun and as a verb, but more as a verb. Although we can speak about pure and impure appearances, if we just leave it at that, it sounds as if they exist out there by themselves. What we’re actually talking about is the mind’s making these things to appear. So we have pure appearance-making and impure appearance-making.

Whether we want to or not, the impure appearancesexist and although we may want to ignore them, or not believe in them, they’re there. So we have to deal with them. What we want to do is to stop our minds from making things appear in an impure way. We can do this because we can work with our minds. If this is the only point that you remember of the following discussion, you will have learned something very, very important.

Appearance-making, that’s what we’re talking about in Buddhism. This whole discussion of tantra and of voidness is how to get our minds to stop making things appear in a crazy, impossible way – in other words, to stop projecting fantasies.

Pure and impure appearances have two meanings. We usually don’t distinguish these very clearly, and therefore, we get very confused. Let’s deal with one meaning at a time. If we put it in simple language, one meaning is that an impure appearance is an appearance of things as if existing in a solidmanner – in other words, a crazy projection of something impossible. Pure appearance-making is making things appear non solidly, the way they actually do exist. So, “impure” is making things appear in a way in which they don’t exist, a non-existent crazy way, and “pure” is making them appear in the way that they do exist.

We can understand this better with a superficial example: when we see somebody we don’t like, our minds make two aspects appear – what the person looks like and how they exist. Let’s leave aside, for a moment, the appearance of what they look like. Concerning the appearance of how they exist, our minds mix two appearances. In addition to how they actually exist as just a human being, our minds also project onto that person that they exist as a monster. What we see then, in terms of how they exist, is a mixture of these two modes of existence. But what predominates is that they look to me like they’re a monster, a horrible person. Conversely, we see a beautiful looking person and not only do our minds give rise to an appearance of how they actually exist, but they also project onto them their existence being established as “the most beautiful, sexy person I’ve ever seen.” Based on that, we develop sexual desire. However, if we analyze, we realize that this is not how they actually exist. This is because if they really existed that way, as inherently sexy from their own side, then everybody should see them as sexy, including the baby and the dog. But, obviously, they don’t see that person as sexy. So that is a projection from our minds that is mixed with the actual appearance of how they exist. This is one level of how our minds mix pure and impure appearances. The pureappearance is how they actually exist and the impure one is an impossible way of existing.

One of the important points that Tsongkhapa, the founder of the Gelugtradition, made is that the object to be refuted by voidness, the thing we have to work on, is how our minds operate every single instant of our lives. It’s not something that only happens when we’re insane; Tsongkhapa is not just talking about paranoia. He’s talking about how our minds ordinarily work. Our minds put together all the dots and project onto them not just a conventional figure, but a conventional figure that appears to exist solidly as this or that. All the senses work like that. When there is the sound of a voice, all these little hair-like structures inside the ear vibrate and send electrical pulses to the brain; the brain puts these together into words and then we understand them.

Now, the problem here is that we believe that things exist solidly, the way that the mind puts them together and makes them appear. Let’s take this point to the level of emotions. Going back to our example, there are all these dots of light and we see the dots combined together into a conventionalobject, which we take to be a spider. That’s accurate. But then we project onto the appearance of the conventionallyexistent spider an impossible manner of existence, as being solidly “a spider.” We scream, “Ah! There’s a spider” and project onto this accurate appearance of what it is something impossible: “It’s a monster and it’s going to get me.” All sorts of paranoia and fear build on that.

The basis for this scenario is putting the dots together first into a spider and then projecting onto it a solididentity of not only a spider, but also of a monster that is going to get me. In other words, we’re not denying the accurate appearance of the dots on another level as being the appearance of a spider. But the spider is merely a limited being that has a whole life of its own. It’s out there on the wall trying to find food and then it’s going to go home to feed its babies and so on. But we put the dots together and see them instead as being solidly “a spider.” We then no longer view it as merely a limited being with an ordinary spider life of its own. Rather, once we’ve made it into a solid monolith of “a spider,” then we hang onto that framework that it’s solidly and inherently existent as a monster. Based on that come our paranoia and fear.

It is the same with the feelings that we have about ourselves. We mix a pure and impure feeling about how we ourselves exist. The pure one is that we’re open to many possibilities; we have many facets of personality and talent; and so on. On top of that basic general feeling of what’s actually there, we mix the feeling of having a solid monolithic identity: “I’m God’s gift to the world” or “I’m a loser.” Then we identify with that monolithic feeling and we become completely neurotic. All our disturbingemotions follow from that.
Generating Ourselves as a Buddha-Figure

What we need to do first is to stop believing that we exist in the impossible ways that our minds project we exist. For that, we need to focus on voidness, which means we need to focus on the fact that these fantasyprojections of ours don’t correspond to anything real. It is very helpful to use a rude word that shocks us into seeing that this is ridiculous, namely to think, “This is bullshit! I’m not like this. Nobody is like this.” It’s bullshit that I’m God’s gift to the world, and it’s also bullshit that I am this monolithic solid thing. What that leaves us with is the feeling that the way we actually are is open to many different possibilities based on Buddha-nature, talents and so on.

Within that absence of all this bullshit, we then arise with an identity based on the openness of these Buddha qualities. That’s how we arise in the form of a Buddha-figure. And we have the pride of the figure, in other words, we try to feel that we are like this. Rather than feeling that we are this monolithic God’s gift to the world, we feel that we are open to many possibilities, and with the development of these possibilities, we can become a Buddha. So that’s how we “visualize” ourselves as a deity, how we imagine that we are one of these Buddha-figures. It’s a very sophisticated process.
The Inseparability of Samsara and Nirvana

The Sakyatradition, one of the four traditions within Tibetan Buddhism, speaks about the inseparability of samsara and nirvana. This is taken on several levels. On one level – we’ve discussed this already, I’m just putting it into another framework – is the inseparability of how our minds make things appear solidly and non-solidly. “Inseparable” here means that they’re mixed together. If we look at anything, from one point of view we see that there’s a solid appearance-making of it; if we look from another point of view, there’s a nonsolid appearance-making of it. Even when we’re a Buddha, even though our minds will no longer make things appear to exist solidly from their own sides, nevertheless a Buddha will see that for others it is the opposite. The minds of limited beings make things appear as if their existence were established solidly from their own sides, and this makes inseparablesamsara and nirvana.

The benefit of seeing these two levels simultaneously all day long – the superimposition of the ordinary appearance and the appearance of a Buddha-figure – is that it helps us to understand that we also mix together an appearance of ordinary solidreality and nonsolid reality. In other words, it helps us to gain the insight that we do not exist in the world simply in the way in which we ordinarily appear to exist. On another level, it helps us not to identify solidly with our ordinary gross appearance, let’s say of being old and fat and incompetent. Rather, it helps us to feel that we also possess these various Buddha-qualities, but of course within the context of our understanding of voidness. This, in turn, helps us to deal with our lives with a much more positive attitude, without risking the danger of inflation of our egos.

What are we doing when we identify ourselves with a Buddha-figure? We are labeling ourselves, calling ourselves a Buddha-figure on the basis of our Buddha-natures. Yet we can’t find that Buddha-nature and we can’t find a solidBuddha inside us. We understand, however, that this is a valid labeling of ourselves as a Buddha-figure. We’re labeling ourselves as a Buddha-figure, the second quantum level, on the basis of our Buddha-natures. But we can’t find that Buddha-nature and we can’t pinpoint this second quantum level of being the Buddha-figure, and yet we understand that this is a valid labeling. We assume that quantum level as a Buddha-figure because we have the Buddha-nature factors that will allow us to achieve that level. Thus, we exist as a Buddha-figure merely in so far as we can be validly labeled as such. There’s nothingsolid and findable inside us making us that.

So, what actually is this Buddha-figure that we are? If we can’t actually find it, we can’t actually see it, it’s merely what the valid label, or our imagination of it, refers to. In this way it’s easier to understand that, in general, our existence as this or that, as a mother, as a laborer, as whatever, is established by valid mental labeling alone and not by the power of something solid and findable inside us. For example, suppose that we conventionallyexist as a mother. What establishes that we exist as a mother? We exist as a mother because we can be validly called a mother based on the fact that we have children. There’s nothing inside us that we can point to that makes us “mother” by its own power, independently of anything else.

This is very important to understand, because if we unconsciouslyimagine that there’s something inside us making us “mother” by its own power, then we have to be “mother” all the time to everybody. Then all the neurotic syndromes come up because of identifying with being solidly “mother.” We only exist as mother in as much as we can be called “mother” and such a label or name is valid because it is dependent on the fact that we have children. This reasoning leads us then to be validly established as a friend on the basis of our friends, as a business woman on the basis of our work, and so on. And so this allows us a tremendous amount of openness to be of help to everybody. We call this type of existence “dependent arising.”

In summary, this has been our survey of the process of visualization, the use of imagination in Buddhism. As we can see, it is a very worthwhile and sophisticated method of practice. At all levels of working with it, from the simplest level of imagining how a young attractive person is going to look like at 80 years old, all the way up to the most sophisticated level, visualization helps us to overcome our disturbing emotions and consequently our problems and difficulties. It enables us to use our potentials more fully to be of best help to everyone. Although using the imagination is by no means an easy method, it is a very effective one for attainingliberation and going on to become a Buddha.
Questions

Alex: Yes, everything is void of impossible modes of existence. Whatever actually exists, which means whatever is validly knowable, there’s nothing findable inside it that establishes its existence. Something findable inside an object is an impossible way of establishing that that objectexists, because there is no such thing as something findable inside it. What voidness negates is the impossible way of existing, by which there is something inside, solid and findable, that by its own power establishes its existence and gives it therefore a solid, permanentidentity that has not and can never be affected by anything. So, the only thing that we can say, if we have to say something about what establishes that things exist is mental labeling alone.

So, we exist as who we are because people can conceive of us and think of us and label us and call us by our name and it’s a correct label. And that’s all! Nothing else is needed to establish our existence. That is what is meant by “mental labeling only.” Buddhism has a very complicated and full discussion on how do we know that a label or a name is correct. But again, just because I call that cushion a dog doesn’t make it a dog. But valid ways of knowing is another huge topic in Buddhist studies and we cannot go into that tonight.

So, when we are viewing somebody as a Buddha, these three aspects are inseparably mixed together. Our pathway conceptualization of what Buddhahood is like, which is on the basis of the foundation level – the Buddha-nature factors – is just an approximation of the result, Buddhahood. It’s only natural that the pathway level is an approximation; it can’t be anything else. Of course we need to validate our approximation according to the various descriptions of a Buddha that we read. We don’t want to have an approximation, let’s say, that a Buddha is omnipotent like the description of God Almighty in the Bible. That is not a quality of a Buddha. If our conceptualization is based on the actual scriptural descriptions and so on, then we can validly work with it even though it is an approximation.

Alex: Well, we have to be a little careful here. First of all, all these Buddha-figures were also alien to Tibetanculture, yet the Tibetans were able to eventually, over time, feel comfortable with them. Being from a different culture is not an inherent barrier. Second, these figures are not just to be taken at face value. They are used in a very sophisticated method. All the arms, faces and so on represent many different levels of meanings and bear profound symbolism. They stand, for example, for many different realizations that we’re trying to have in our minds simultaneously. To try to have 24 insights simultaneously in our minds is very difficult if we do it abstractly, not only conceptually but also nonconceptually. We’re talking about love, patience, understanding and so forth. But if we represent these 24 insights or qualities graphically with 24 arms, it’s much easier to imagine all of these at the same time. Therefore, visualization of these multi-armed, multi-face figures is a device to help us keep all the things they represent simultaneously in our minds.

So, we need to be very careful not to throw away one of the most important purposes of these figures, which is to have all these arms and legs and faces. However when the iconography of these figures went from one country to another – from India not only to Tibet, but also to China and Japan – the facial features, for example, changed from Indian to Chinesefeatures. Some of the clothing also changed. The most drastic change was that Avalokiteshvara underwent a sex change and became female in China. He was male in India and Tibet. So, there are certain things that on a superficial level can be adapted, but one has to be very careful. To make any cultural adaptations, as my teachers have pointed out again and again, requires pretty much thorough knowledge of both the original culture and the culture that you’re going into, and, of course, full knowledge of Buddhism. This requires a very broad understanding, not just deep but broad.

Question: I understand that there are two ways of dissolving a visualization, and I want to know if this is correct. One of them is, for example, when we visualizeVajrasattva on top of our heads, at the end of our practice he melts and dissolves into light and comes to our heart. Right? That’s one kind of dissolution. The other one is like with the merit field, where one figure dissolves into another. Is that correct?

Let us now dissolve our session then with a dedication – another way to dissolve an appearance. We think that whatever understanding, insight and positive force we might have gained tonight, may that grow more and more. Particularly, what we’ve discussed tonight has not been easy; it’s very sophisticated. So we hope that our understanding of it will grow deeper and deeper as we listen to the tapes or read the transcription and try to understand more and more, if we are interested in doing so. May we be able to derive more and more benefit from integrating these teachings into our practice and into our personalities, so that they can help us overcome difficulties and realize more and more of our potentials to be of best help to everyone. And may we try to put all the pieces of the Dharma puzzle together, so that we understand more and more and can derive more and more benefit from the teachings and the practices.

We need to put the pieces of the Dharma puzzle together. That means switching quantum levels from the ordinary level to the Buddha-nature, Buddha-figure level. Remember, inseparablesamsara and nirvana. The teacher has shortcomings, but also good qualities, inseparably. One is the gross level; one is the more subtle level. The subtle level is the good qualities. Just as in meditation, we would only focus on the subtle level for various beneficial reasons, likewise while receiving teachings we would also focus just on the more subtle level of the teacher in terms of this more subtlequantum level of being a Buddha. That will allow us to focus on and appreciate the teacher’s good qualities while receiving teachings, which will help us to have the most open and receptive mind to try to understand what the teacher is saying. To focus on the gross problems of the teacher while listening to teachings distracts us from what he or she is saying. It’s not at all helpful at the time of listening to the teachings.

Nevertheless, regarding the teacher as a Buddha while listening to teachings, in other words focusing on this more subtlequantum level, doesn’t mean that we lose our ability to discriminate between the teacher saying something correct or something incorrect. That’s there. Seeing a different quantum level does not preclude the functioning of discriminating awareness. So, in this way we need to put together all the pieces of the Dharma puzzle in order to really understand on a deeper level some of the most confusing teachings.

May our understanding and our process of putting the pieces together grow more and more, so that we can truly be of best help to everyone.